Prince Motor Company

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Defunct

Prince Motor Company was a Japanese automobile manufacturer from 1952 until its merger with Nissan in 1966. Prince began as the Tachikawa Aircraft Company, a producer of the famous Japanese Zero fighter planes. After the war, the company diversified into automobiles, producing an electric car, the Tama, in 1952. The company changed its name to Prince in 1955 to honor Emperor of Japan, Crown Prince Akihito.

Prince had success building premium automobiles. Among its most famous car lines were the Skyline and Gloria, both of which were absorbed into the Nissan range after their 1966 merger. The Prince organization remained in existence inside Nissan, though the marque disappeared. It was said that the true reason why none of the Nissan Skyline models made it to Europe or North America prior to the V35 were not safety or emissions standards, but a long-standing rivalry between the "Prince" element in Nissan and the rest of the company which was only settled fully when it merged with Renault and Carlos Ghosn intervened personally. Since the merger, the Prince name survived as a Nissan dealership network in Japan which it still operates today.